Making Lemonade in Second Grade: Back to School:)

January 5-9

We spent the first part of our mornings this week getting to know each other again. :) We needed a little refresher too on rules, procedures, and expectations. It didn't take us long to get back into the swing of things though and it seemed that we picked up right where we left off in October.:)

Here are a few highlights of some things that happened in Room 104 this week:

Chinatown

-Reading and Social Studies:

We read the story Chinatown, by William Low. This continued our unit on how various cultures impact the world that we live in. They really enjoyed learning about the place, Chinatown, in San Francisco, as well as how the Chinese live their daily lives, and how they celebrate the Chinese New Year. We watched a video clip on the lion dancers and they were AMAZED!! I love seeing their excitement when they are learning something new or seeing something for the first time! I know right away that it is going to be their 'take away' for the day and something that I've helped build their background knowledge on! :) Our reading skill was being able to summarize the story and retell the beginning, middle, and end! They love being able to find the important CHUNKS in the story now!

-Math:

We picked back up on their Money Unit. We practiced counting coins combinations up to $1.00. We did math stations so I could meet with small groups in order to see exactly what each child needed some extra help with. We practiced using various strategies because counting coins is definitely not a 'one size fits all' approach. :) Many of the students like to just 'count on', but some students still prefer counting by 5's, using touchpoints.

-Writing:

We worked on writing our New Year's Resolutions this week! Our writing mini lessons consisted of learning how to "HOOK" the reader with a fun or interesting introduction. We also focused on having important details and we looked at ways that we can close our story with a fun or interesting conclusion.

-Language:

We worked on action verbs this week and they are so funny now about letting me know what they are doing is a verb! We played Charades and made a comic strip with action verbs!